#semi british history

[myteastainedpages]

have suddenly been filled with a burning desire to reread the old books i loved as a child (a little princess - that one above all -, the secret garden, pollyanna...) and also hetty feather (largely bc i wanna see what i think of it now as an adult who knows more about that era than i did at the time, i have no memory of how accurate/inaccurate it is)

[bfpnola]

IMAGE DESCRIPTION ADDED. REBLOG THIS VERSION AND THANK YOU @lab-labrava FOR WRITING IT!

ID: An infographic from the Instagram account @letstalkpalestine consisting of 10 slides. Image 1: The title page of the infographic. The text says: "Let's talk Anti-Zionist Jewish History." A smaller subtitle underneath the title says: "Jewish solidarity with Palestine until today." End ID.

Image 2: The infographic continues to the next panel. The text says, "As long as Zionism has existed, so has Jewish resistance to it. While today the majority of Jewish people and communities worldwide still have a Zionist connection, more and more Jewish people, especially from the younger generation, are unlearning Zionism & speaking out. Swipe to learn more about just part of anti-Zionist Jewish history - since there's more than we can fit in 10 slides." A semi-transparent image is overlayed in the background, of someone holding up a sign that reads: Jews for Palestine! #Free Sheik Jarrah. End ID.

Image 3: Icon of a location tag next to the words Eastern Europe. In large, blue text is the word "The Bund" and the subtitle describing what it is, "A Jewish Socialist movement, established in 1987." The following paragraph says, "Opposing Zionism from the start, its 50-year tenure saw hundred of thousands of members across Eastern Europe advocate for workers' rights and cultivate a Yiddish culture." Location tag and the title, "North America." The paragraph says, "After mass immigration to the US in the early 20th century, [American Jewish Labor groups] (highlighted in chalky blue and bold white text) criticized Zionism for its colonial, nationalist, and bourgeois nature." Next to this text, is a circle with women protestors holding up signs. End ID.

Image 4: The title, "Middle East and North Africa." The paragraph states, "In 1945 a group of Iraqi Jews founded the Anti-Zionist League. They recognized Zionism as a form of colonialism linked to Western Interests. They hosted events and published pamphlets throughout the Middle East about the difference between Zionism & Judaism. They warned that Zionism is dangerous to Arab Jews, forcing them to split their Arab and Jewish identities, and urged the UN to create a unified Palestinian state.

Image 5: The panel is titled, "Anti-Zionist Jewish figures." A faded image of Hannah Arendt's visage is in the background. Overlayed on top, the following paragraphs discuss her. "Before 1948, several prominent Jewish leaders and scholars came out in opposition to political Zionism. Writers like Hannah Arendt turned against the Zionist movement and opposed a Jewish state. They correctly predicted a dark future if Zionism continued on the same path in Palestine. End ID.

Image 6: The day after the Deir Yassin Massacre in 1948, when Zionist militants wiped out the Deir Yassin village & its inhabitants, Albert Einstein wrote: "When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people." The former paragraphs are imposed against a tan, parchment fragment, in typewriter font, and the letter ends with Sincerely yourn, Albert Einstein, both his signature and typed name. End ID.

Image 7: Titled "Anti Zionism Today." Blue sketchy image of someone's hand gripping jail bars breaks up the following paragraphs which say: Jewish solidarity with Palestinians is growing around the world, including even some Israelis who take the basic step of refusing Israeli military service. As punishment, Israel imprisons these conscientious objectors — but unlike Palestininas, they have a fair trial & often severe relatively short sentences of a few months . This is a first step towards solidarity and has the real consequence of depriving the occupation state of its soldiers. End ID.

Image 8: Titled "Israel's Crackdown on Jewish Anti-Zionism" Behind this text are a picture of handcuffs. In the corner is a picture of Jonathan Pollak. The following text says: Jonathan Pollak is a Jewish Israeli and long-time anti-Zionist activist. Israel has detained him several times, most recetly in January as he protested with Palestinians in Beita, (a Palestinian village) for allegedly throwing stones. Jonathan has been violently attacked for his activism. In 2018, Jonathan was slashed across the face by settlers who ambushed him outside his workplace. Earlier, in 2005, Israeli soldiers shot a tear gas canister. directly at him, causing internal bleeding in his brain." End ID.

Image 9: Semi-transparent image of an umbrella behind the title text is "Jewish Anti-Zionism isn’t one ideology. It’s an umbrella movement that encapsulates multiple communities and beliefs towards decolonizing Palestine. Some motivations or Jewish anti-Zionism include: 1. Pursuing millenia of Jewish tradition as a diasporic community 2, Detachibng religious and cultural tradition from political nationalism. 3. Socialist visions of a Jewish Society. 4. Believing in the right to self-determination for Palestinians Standing up to Zionism is: 1. Standing up to apartheid and colonization. 2. Standing up for a liberated, equal, and just Palestine from the river to the sea.

Image 10: An ending quote, and call to action, by the Anti-Zionist League. It says: "Jewish Men! Jewish Women! Zionism wants to throw us into a dangerous & hopeless adventure. Zionism contributes to making Palestine uninhabitable. Zionism wants to isolate us from the Egyptian people. Zionism is the enemy of the Jewish people. Down with Zionism! Long live the brotherhood of Jews and Arabs!" --The Anti-Zionist League. End ID.

[girls--complex]

hi, love your work a lot! it manages to blend coherence with layers of esoterica, in a fun & meaningful way. do you have any big influences with your style?

Writing this as a narrative because my whimsicall mind can't seem to organize information logickally otherwise

So

When I was a child my Dad would show me a lot of comics/cartoons in all different styles/eras and so I was internalizing comic book logic from the very beginning. He really liked American comix both capes and Indie stuff but was also into franco belgian artists and let's be clear my papa has good taste so I was readying good stuff though I couldn't remember it all too reliably... Also Comics Journal, so I was reading comics & meta about comics. So basically I have like a deep archetypal brain stem dark spring of mind that spits out raw comic information like a dream that I can't place until I rediscover them, and a lot of deep unremembered imprintations that R kinda roiling around under the surface #Stupidsoldier

N then I was a deviantart kiddo and a reading manga at barnes and noble kiddo, and then I went and got a formal art education and learned about all these artists that sort of did pseudo comics or cartoons but didnt articulate it that way-- The German xpressionists are a big example of this -- and also about overall principles of like scale and hierarchy and time and presence -- and also just that I really like drawin the human figure in particular :)

I'm really grateful that my parents especially my dad were actually really supportive/invested in me being an artist even though they had very little faith in my character or overall competence. so I was always doing art activities to make me better at drawing because that was like the one redeeming quality I had, a lot of household resources went into me having art tutoring or doing community classes, and I was really strongly encouraged to get ma BFA

So 4 influences well I like things that are very stylish but very specific in how they represent figure N physiognomy... Naoki Urosawa & Jeff Smith were fascinations 2 me along this line... Arakawa is good too... I feel like this is a strength of American and British cartoonists generally but struggling to think of names

My favorite painter is tied between two commies: Siqueiros, who was a Mexican muralist and chaotic socialist, really specific markmaking and texture, pathos drenched figuration, charged epic landscapes, and Petrov-Vodkin, Russian ikonographer who became a propagandist for the USSR, semi-social-realist, semi-ikonographic compositions in which space is wrapping around itself to organize human figures according to a mythological logic, flattish, very cartoons/comics aligned, strange treatment of color but all really effective

History painting overall is everything to me it really doesn't show in Coward but I think it shows elsewhere some of my other dramatic sensibility is a lot from 00s action movie shlock which I would always enjoy to go see when I was younger and was somehow fascinated with the environment of government buildings and prisons and secret operations happeningunder the surface of every day life erupting into wet violence of men punching each other

I love the movie THE RAID redemption !!!!

I learned a lot of the logic of pacing N building pages around Tezuka's work as well as FMA N Death Note I think were big 1s to teach me that logic. Tezuka is a really good artist to look at for how to compose a page that supports the energy of the events that are happening on it, not that that's something I personally am good at. Favorite mangaka for tone and environment and visual identity are Katsuhiro Otomo, Tustomu Nihei, Suehiro Maruo, Nishioka siblings, Hideshi Hino

A lot of my sense of timing is also from news paper strips tbh. It's just a gut thing to me at this point hehe , Character design is also a gut thing for me I draw a little thing and I can either ensoul it with psychosexual fixation or I can't

I was born in the hospital Henry Darger worked at St. Joe's he's an ancestor to me but ofc inimitable by virtue of GOD being his sole audience

As for the esoterickal dimensions I feel like it's all it's own post let's just say I lack the inclination and ability for systematic and rigorous study but I am really interesting in gathering little packets of information and arranging them into dioramas and the longer I do it the more packets I accrue

I want to make a list of artists on here that I like/admire sometime too but that's too much for me rn. I also suspect a lot of people R mad at me for arbitrary reasons just as I also am mad at a lot of people for arbitrary reasons so I dont wanna bother no one ...

Oh well so I'm intentionally reorganizing how I draw right now because I sense a shift in my trajectory again so thanks for making me reflect

[leiflitter]

More

Hello from Blighty thoughts about Saltburn

As a continuation from my reply to @armands-eyefuckery because BRAIN

Aight gang let's have a lil sit down because there is a big ol angle to the film that I think is getting missed by a lot of folks who aren't from the UK because it's a very uh...

British Thing.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT OLIVER IS FROM THE NORTH.

Cut because Length.

Now look. I am not going to go into Thatcher and Her Crimes, but it's worth a google. I do bring it up in You're Almost Home because...

Lots of people are saying Oliver is upper middle class, and honestly? That doesn't track for me. At all. Yes, his parents have a detached house in a nice suburb and they went on holidays, but there's a lot of Very British Context to them that I really want to point out. Also remember, it's 2006/2007. That is also important.

First of all- Oliver's parents probably never went to University.

Really listen to them. How gullible they are- they believe that Oliver can study at Oxford, and be on the rowing team, and be in plays, and be top scholar. He's always been so clever. If Oliver was anything near upper middle class, his parents would be educated professionals. Oliver probably has dockworkers not even three generations back- his dad has management vibes, but he probably worked his way up in the 70s when all you needed was a good attitude and not to be an obvious murderer.

Secondly- let's talk about the house.

As someone from Down South who has also lived Up North, Oliver's Parent's house would not have been as expensive as people think. Let's assume they bought it in the 1980s- we ALL know that house prices are through the roof NOW, but even today there is a huge gap between house prices in the south and the north. 200k down South might get you a one bedroom flat, if you're lucky. 200k in Prescot can get you a 4-bed, semi-detached HOUSE. Check rightmove.

It is also important that the house is relatively new-looking, because over here Upper Middle Class people aren't really into new build houses- if Oliver was upper middle class, he'd be living in something Victorian or Edwardian. Probably somewhere with a good link to London, especially in 2007. It also means that Oliver's parents may not have even bought it outright- my parents got on the housing ladder via a shared ownership scheme. Oliver's parents aren't rich.

Now, the holidays. Mykonos. Another fun Brit thing is the package holiday. Here's a pretty interesting article about them;

Two adults and three kids could absolutely have gone to Mykonos every year in the late 80s/90s for far less than you'd expect, especially if they paid in installments each month.

I also mentioned about Ollie being from Merseyside specifically, but again. CONTEXT. Although Oliver isn't Liverpudlian (it's important, he's from NEAR Liverpool but not Liverpool itself) the North of England as a whole has routinely been fucked over by those in power. The government AND the royals and the very wealthy. It's still ongoing today- again, another fun source.

Remember when Mr Eats-Crunchies-Sideways called him a Bootlicker? That's fucking IMPORTANT. To many folks he IS a bootlicker. He is highly unlikely to have been raised to grovel at the feet of those with hereditary titles and wealth, and honestly he doesn't. I've written before about how Oliver Denies Felix Things and how that dynamic is important. Oliver likely hasn't been raised with any real deference to The Rich (except Princess Diana).

It also effects Oliver's response to Felix, because goddamn it THATCHER again- it is HIGHLY likely that Oliver has lived through a lot of homophobia. Internalised a lot of it. Felix's parents do not give a shit, but that was not the norm. Again, tried to hit on it in YAH, because times have changed since the 90s/2000s and people change with them, but no fuckin wonder Oliver never responded to Felix chirpsing him like a maniac. He's fucking REPRESSED when he's in Oxford, pals. It also makes sense with that weird Tumblr Dom shit he pulls; he's still fuckin weird about it, he's just being In Charge so he doesn't need to be vulnerable in any way. He is only vulnerable for Felix, and even then he can't SHOW felix that, that would be gay.

Leiflitter over'n'out

[emilybeemartin]

Ok ok ok ok listen. Because I have anxiety I feel it's my duty to say that this show won't be for everyone. I came to it over quarantine because my husband suggested we read Bernard Cornwell's series together, and I agreed because I liked Hornblower and knew this was the army equivalent and, let's face it, I wanted to see scruffy mid-thirties Sean Bean in uniform.

THE PREMISE:

Richard Sharpe is a lowborn rank-and-file soldier in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars who is raised to an officer after saving Sir Arthur Wellesley's life (this all happens differently in the books, but the basic event is the same). Throughout the series, he rises in the ranks thanks to his bravery and heroism/recklessness, but he's always caught between two worlds--trying to be a leader of common men while never being accepted by the rest of the highborn officers.

Let's start with the bad:

CONS:

Look, this is a 90s drama glorifying the British army. So like, there are gonna be issues. Women are mostly romantic side pieces to be wooed and rescued, and there are plenty of subplots, verbiage, and stereotypes that didn't age well. Production values are low for the first few and so you've got battle scenes with like fifteen guys and a horse, which honestly I find endearing. But no episode is more cringey than Sharpe's Gold. Due to legal issues, the script had to be rewritten with none of the original material, and it turned into this bizarro semi-supernatural horror involving Aztec gold (in Spain, yes). It's completely different from all the other episodes, and even Sean Bean didn't like it (he called it a "mish mash," which is true). It's such a weird piece of work that we almost stopped watching the show, but we continued, and we were relieved to find that the rest of the series is markedly better. History Hack podcast does a great dive into why this episode was so whack.

PROS:

I MEAN COME ON

Sean really understood this character--absolute chaos on the battlefield and shy and awkward pretty much everywhere else. He's amazing in battle scenes and he's EPIC at acting wounded. But the scenes I replay over and over are when he's socially out of his depth and gets flustered and sputtery and so Sheffield the captions can't handle it.

Supporting cast:

You'll find a lot of your classic British TV favorites making appearances throughout this series, and the camaraderie among the riflemen is always fun. Obviously this is a dude fest, as stated above, but some of the women are also written and acted really, really well--- Assumpta Serna as Teresa is that winning combination of a love interest/action heroine who doesn't devolve into a damsel in distress, and even passes the Bechdel test on a few occasions. And Diana Perez as Ramona is so badass and enjoyable.

Locations: Aside from a few interior sets, these films are mostly shot outside on location, with practical effects and stunts. There's some gorgeous scenery of the Crimean peninsula standing in for Spain and Portugal, and it's just really fun watching these guys run around rocky escarpments and fields with flares and stage explosives going off around them.

Music: I saw someone tag the opening theme as "electric guitar jumpscare" and they're not wrong. It's wonderfully anachronistic and totally 90s and you'll never get used to it. But far better are the soldiers' songs John Tams threads throughout, as well as his and Muldowney's thematic scores, and you will always, always finish an episode with him singing "Over the Hills and Far Away" stuck in your head.

Filming Lore: There was a LOT that happened during filming. Everything from Paul McGann having to drop out as the lead to misadventures in filming in Crimea just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History Hack podcast has an awesome series of "filming of" episodes with input from cast, crew, and historians, and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has a book called "From Crimea With Love" that details the batshit filming adventures. I haven't read it but he references it every six minutes throughout the podcasts.

So: you've been warned, you've been primed. Start with Sharpe's Rifles; it's on Youtube. Watch it and Eagle, maybe jump to Battle or Siege if you're not sure, and then make up your mind.

If this all sounds enjoyable to you, but you wish there were more tall ships, more Paul McGann, more heroic brooding, and even MORE true love cosplaying as masculine camaraderie, you're in luck! Because you should also watch Hornblower!

And then draw fan art of it all! Please,,, I am so lon el y

[too-antigonish]

He used to be Constable Thursday!

Recently, I've needed to look up various details of Fred Thursday's life before he came to Oxford—including what being an officer in the London Metropolitan Police would have been like waaay back when he first signed up back in 1938.

There's a short article on the history of the Metropolitan Police by Clive Emsley (who also wrote a fairly well-regarded history of British policing), that has lots of interesting tidbits.

For instance:

"Until the end of the Second World War, most rank-and-file police officers came from the semi-skilled and unskilled working classes. Often, they did not join the force with a career in mind but to tide themselves over during a period of unemployment. The pay was steady and did not depend on market fluctuations (unlike other working-class jobs where the pay might, at times, be much higher). However, it could slip at times or, in a serious downturn, go down to nothing."

This fits with Fred being the son of a man who, as we learn in Cartouche, "...used to bare-knuckle it for a shift," at the Shadwell Basin in the East End.

Something more relevant to Bright than Thursday is this:

"In the larger towns and cities (and some counties), the chief constable was more likely to be a man who could fit in with the wealthy elite. Invariably he was a man used to commanding others, either in the armed forces or from one of the paramilitary imperial police forces – such as the Royal Irish Constabulary or one of the forces in Imperial India. It was only between the two world wars that the government began to insist that such men had an awareness and experience of policing."

Another interesting nugget:

"Unlike other working-class groups, a policeman’s wife was not allowed to take employment on her own behalf, which permanently limited the couple’s income. The fear was that a policeman's working wife might be tempted to use influence or be put under pressure because of her husband's job. Police officers were meant to appear as members of the ‘respectable working class’ (even if their pay was so much lower), and the wives of such men did not work."

A brief search didn't give me any indication of when the ban on working was lifted for policemen's wives, so I can't say for sure if it would have applied to Win.

The search did, however, show me that police wives were in many instances the earliest women in paid, professional roles in the police. Only after they had pioneered the way were other women allowed to join.

And finally:

"Each man was given a beat [a territory and time in which to patrol], which was supervised by sergeants who periodically checked that each officer was where he was supposed to be. In London, police were expected to walk at a regulation 2.5 miles an hour. The traditional beat patrol lasted for more than a century, although it became more flexible over time as it became clear that any sensible burglar or robber could simply wait until the constable had passed through their territory before committing a crime."

I include that last bit because I would pay a large sum of money to hear what Morse would have said regarding:

1) The regulation 2.5 miles an hour

2) The fact that any sensible burglar or robber could simply wait until the constable had passed through their territory before committing a crime

[buckets-and-trees]

Field Guide to Forestry

We just hit another follower milestone, so since there are way too many of you around for me to put this off any longer, how about I officially let everyone know who I am and what you'll find around here...

CHIEF FORESTER: ASPEN Elder Millennial/upper 30s, she/her

THINGS ASPEN KNOWS WAY TOO MUCH ABOUT Trader Joe's, Disney Parks, the Great British Bake Off, CBS Survivor, Houseplants

IN THIS FIELD GUIDE YOU WILL FIND:

↠ Maps & Masterlists: my writing ↠ Forest Rules & Regulations: my guidelines and boundaries ↠ Visitors to the Forest: my approach to asks, requests, and tagging ↠ Upcoming Expeditions: projects I'm working on ↠ Tree Classification: my current tags ↠ Tales of the Teller: more about me and my writing

↠ THE FOREST OF FICS IN UPSTATE NEW YORK The MCU realm of my writing

↠ I do not interact with minors. It's not safe for anyone under 18 in these woods, and I'm honestly more comfortable knowing folks are over 21 because of the nature of things around here.

↠ I do not consent to having my works translated or posted to other platforms. If I wanted to, I would.

↠ I will block at my own discretion. This is my forest, and I set the boundaries. Underage? Blocked. Pornbot pigeon? Blocked. Bigotted? Blocked. Rude? Blocked. Just be a reasonable human over the age of 18, and you'll be free to roam the woods.

↠ ASKS Always open. I adore asks! Send thoughts, thots, questions, gifs, pics... Asks are NEVER a bother and you can ask about anything - questions about my existing works, stuff I'm working on, fandom things, my life... I'll answer within reason (no spoilers, I'm semi-open about my life but do keep some things private, etc). FULL DISCLOSURE: I'm not always prompt with answering them. Some have inspired fic or drabble ideas, and sometimes that writing goes fast, sometimes it goes slow, and there are a few that are sitting in my box that are "future" parts of current WIPs. But the hope is to always get to everything eventually.

↠ REQUESTS The only thing I'm actively entertaining requests for is my Cedar Trees Royal AU collection - but even these will be fulfilled subjectively and only as I have time and muse cooperation. Periodically I may host a request fest (as I did for my 300 follower celebration or for other occasions in the future).

↠ TAGLIST At this point in the growing season, I'm not maintaining an official taglist. In the future I will probably set up a secondary/library blog as many other authors have done where you can follow and turn on the notifications. There are only so many hours in the day, explorers.

↠ HOT BUCKY SUMMER 2024: thirteen weeks of prompts ↠ BUILD-A-BUCKY BINGO: twelve months of prompts ↠ THE GREAT BUCKY BAKE OFF: a Bucky x Reader episodic story with a Great British Bake Off format (coming fall 2024) ↠ ASPEN'S HOLIDAY EXTRAVAGANZA 2024: eight days of fics followed by one day of many, many fics (coming December 2024)

↠ FOREST NAVIGATION: field guide, masterlists, story collections ↠ AN ASPEN THING: when I post something more to do with me than anything fandom ↠ ASPEN MILESTONES: ONLY YOU CAN CREATE THESE FOREST FIRES ↠ ASKpen: responses to things from my ask box ↠ ASPEN IS WRITING: any commentary, sneak peaks, progress posts ↠ ASPEN WROTE SOMETHING: new writing post (fic, drabble, chapter) ↠ WRITER COMMENTARY: commentary either as a response to an ask or in a reblog ↠ OMG REBLOGGED THANK YOU: responding to or thanking people for reblogging my fics ↠ READING: my reblogs of other people's fics ↠ MY MOOTS: flailing about or responding to one of my mutual friends

↠ HISTORY OF ASPEN I grew up in a family that was steeped in all things stories: grandparents, aunts and uncles always telling stories at family gatherings; parents read to me before bed; watching too many movies and cartoons; staying up way past my bedtime trying to sneakily keep the light on to read and read and read; playing elaborate imagination games after school with my best friends (house, princesses, orphans, dance coaches, etc). I wrote my first story in my eighth grade English class where one day in the computer lab we were assigned to write a mystery that was at least one page. I loved it. My teacher said it was good...

That summer our family moved - mere days before I started my freshman year of high school - so that fall before I made friend friends, I read a lot and I started writing. I was desperate for the next Harry Potter book to come out, so I started writing my own... the next year I learned about fan fiction on the internet and that it was a thing. I was drawn into Lord of the Rings fanfic, then I wrote a Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, and then I went back to Harry Potter and actively wrote in that fandom for around six years.

In college I majored in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing because while I was writing fan fiction, I was also occasionally dabbling with original fiction... the dream was to be a famous writer.

↠ WHY BUCKETS-AND-TREES Buckets because I thought I'd be writing almost exclusively Bucky and Trees because Aspen. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

↠ ASPEN NOW In summer of 2022 I aggressively reclaimed HAVING hobbies in an effort to re-establish Aspen having a life outside of work. I love my career and I've worked incredibly hard to establish myself in the professional world, but... I needed to be more than just my work again.

So, again I write.

Throughout 2023 I started venturing out and participated in A LOT of challenges, which was so much fun in pushing my creative boat out into new waters. In 2024 I plan to DO THE DAMN THING and write a novel. I've always intended to, but 2024 will be the year. ↠ MY WORK Primarily I'm writing MCU fan fiction - typically Bucky Barnes or Steve Rogers; I have written some pieces with Sam, Natasha, Matt Murdock, Namor, and Wanda; I have some ideas for Thor, Carol, and M'Baku that I may or may not get around to. I've written for a slew of Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans characters and that's mostly where my muse lives.

I write a range of fluff, smut, and dark. Nearly all of my work has mature elements whether that's stronger language, sexual situations, or mature themes. HEED THE WARNINGS FOR EACH WORK AND DO NOT READ IT IF IT'S SOMETHING YOU DON'T LIKE. If I miss tagging something properly in the content warnings, please send me a message or an anonymous ask and let me know.

Most of my stories feature a reader insert. Reader is typically female, but when the reader is gender neutral I will designate accordingly! Striving to write an inclusive reader as much as possible, but if I stumble, please send me a message or an anonymous ask and let me know how I can grow.

[wutheringheightsfilm]

interview with the vampire art history lesson part 2:

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Francis Bacon, c. 1944. Held at the Tate Britain in London. Here is its catalog listing.

So! This is the painting that has been on the wall of Louis and Armand's apartment, and that Season 2 makes a point to emphasize that they're selling. Full disclosure, modern British art history is not my forte, but I have covered this in a British art history survey class, and this is arguably one of Bacon's most famous works, so there's a lot of literature you can find on this. Let's discuss!!!

Now, one claim that you can try to make here about the relationship of this painting with Armand specifically is that Armand is now connected to two 'Christian' artworks (see my post on The Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor here): one that marks the beginning of Christ's (semi)mortal life, and one that marks the end of it, which is definitely interesting, but the thing is with this Three Studies piece is that Francis Bacon put a lot of emphasis on the fact that this is a crucifixion, not the Crucifixion. Francis Bacon was an atheist, however, a lot of his work does revolve around either critiquing or dealing with Christianity (this is not his only work to reference/allude to or show the Crucifixion, as well as his other very famous work, Study after Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X). It was a very nuanced, complex topic for him that is way beyond the scope of this post.

Interestingly, though, Bacon has made a point to say that "faith is a fantasy" [1]----which is definitely something interesting in relation to Armand...

What Three Studies is definitely associated with, though, is World War II and Greek tragedy.

The catalog entry from the Tate spends a while discussing the process of this painting, and how Bacon may have drawn from his various experiences during World War II (he was in the ARP during the London Blitz), as well as other works made around this time (namely, Figure Getting Out of a Car and Man in a Cap) referencing various Nazi imagery that Bacon had seen impacting his process for creating this triptych. Various scholars have cited Bacon as interested in the dynamics of power and violence, and the imagery of the triptych can be interpreted as either the perpetrator and/or the victim [2]. Bacon has also confirmed that this painting references the Eumenides (the Furies who are responsible for enacting revenge in Greek mythology) [3 + 4].

Now that we've covered the very basics of this work, let's discuss how this might relate to Louis and Armand. This work being present in the show has raised some interesting points for me, and some questions:

The show makes a point of emphasizing that they're selling this work. Since this work is so closely related to World War II, and Louis and Armand are currently trying to relay their experiences during World War II, is the selling of it symbolic of either 1) 'selling' their story to Daniel or 2) finally closing out that chapter in their lives?

It is interesting that in their apartment, there is only modern and post-modern artwork and architecture. I wonder how deeply this ties to Armand's trauma, since he himself was modeled (whitewashed as he was) in Late Renaissance/Mannerism artwork from the 1500s. How much of that experience drives his taste in art?

Bacon's juxtaposition and struggle with violence, power, and the dynamic of the perpetrator/victim is extremely interesting... the thoughts are still cooking about this one.

What do u guys think.... i've been microwaving this in my head all day along with the other painting!

Works Cited + Referenced:

[1] D. Farson, The Gilded Gutter Life of Francis Bacon, London, 1994, p. 134. [Taken from this JSTOR article, further cited below] [2] Referencing the catalogue here, which cites: Ziva Amishai-Maissels, Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts, Oxford, New York, Seoul and Tokyo 1993, pp.189-90, 225-6, 354. [3] M[ichael] C[ompton], letter to Francis Bacon, 6 Jan. 1959, Tate Gallery cataloguing files. [4] Francis Bacon, letter to Tate Gallery, [9 Jan. 1959], Tate Gallery cataloguing files. [5] Arya, Rina. “The Primal Cry of Horror: The A-Theology of Francis Bacon.” Artibus et Historiae 32, no. 63 (2011): 275–83. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41479747.

[freeuselandonorris]

also wait for fic, is carpark fucking the same as industrial estate gangbang

excellent question anon NO it is not!! this is something @glasscushion and i workshopped extensively in the DMs ages ago… of course tumblr’s search function is hopelessly broken so i can’t find any of the original posts for this but there was a photo a while back of oscar sitting in the front seat of a car with the door open wearing like, a puffa jacket and joggers. and the vibes of it were so weirdly sleazy?? i will update this post if either of us find it lmao (M is diligently scouring the fetid history of our DMs as we speak)

anywayyyy the general gist was. grim shopping centre multi-storey car park (i was particularly thinking of one near where i grew up but i can’t post it because it’s too doxxable) but this kinda thing:

bleak, grim, lots of viewing angles. and lando being really into dogging (if you’re not UK-based, it’s a very particularly british and sleazy vibe of public, semi-anonymous sex) and oscar kind of getting into it by accident, maybe just through loneliness or curiosity or whatever, and being completely blindsided when he hooks up with this gorgeous sulky little scally in his ratty joggers and monster™️ hoodie in the front seat of his sports car. lots of grim ballardian vibes.

spiritually very similar to the industrial estate gangbang but like. to me the vibes of the carpark fucking are provincial english suburban retail park meets crash, whereas the industrial park gangbang is the four chambers VHS film (warning: that link has porn). very much can imagine it’s the same lando in both though.

[five-miles-over]

Please, baby! Jonathan Pine + kisses that start out passionate but grows more delicate + brushing lips together, lingering for a moment, catching your breath

Thank you so much for sending in this request, and thank you even more for your patience :) I hope you enjoy this.

My Dearest Diamond

Summary: After nearly two years of working for MI-6, Jonathan tried to get in touch with you, the girl who stole his heart when he worked at Hotel Meister. For three weeks, the two of you rekindled your love via handwritten letters, until you booked a five-day trip to London to see him.

As he prepares to make this holiday special for you, Jonathan reflects on his relationship with you...and carries out one last errand before you land.

Warnings: Mentions of past smut (nothing explicit), kissing. References to characters like Roper, Sophie, Angela, and Freddie from the tv show

Jonathan glanced at his watch. Your flight to London was set to land in exactly three hours. It would be your first flight to London from Zurich, and the first time he would be seeing you after three weeks of exchanging handwritten letters and twenty months of separation.

Twenty months since the last time he held you in his arms and stroked your hair. Twenty months since your last goodbye in the lobby of Hotel Meister, when he caressed your soft cheeks and wiped your tears to no avail. Twenty months since he heard the sound of your voice. 

The closest that Jonathan had gotten to "hearing" you was through the letters you wrote to the British Foreign Office. Three weeks ago, he'd decided to get in touch with you once Operation Limpet came to a semi-steady conclusion, and discretely had a letter delivered to the university of Zurich, where he remembered you were enrolled as a student of history and political science. Should any of Roper's cronies choose to track down Jonathan's contacts, his letters to you were each addressed with a different pseudonym.

Your letters to him were often simple, filled with trivial anecdotes about your life - the plays you'd seen, the books you'd read, the cakes you tasted. But to Jonathan, they were anything except trivial. They reminded him that there was more to life than a blind attachment to duty. That it was innocent civilians like you for whom a man like Roper needed to be stopped. That for Jonathan, a life with true companionship and simple pleasures was possible. And for those reasons and more, Jonathan Pine, ex-soldier and former hotelier, a once self-exiled creature of the night, was hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you.

He loved you since the night you first met. In that same lobby where he welcomed Roper and many other distinguished guests, Jonathan introduced himself to you. Even as he passed through the crowded streets of London, all Jonathan had to do was close his eyes, and in the blink of an eye, he would be transported back to Zurich, back to that fateful night two years ago.

You sat by yourself in the lobby, your nose buried in a copy of Shakespeare's Henry V. Eleven-thirty on a winter's night, Jonathan made his way to the sofa where you were sitting and began conversation. You talked about your childhoods, his military boarding school past and your history of always being the "good girl" who never broke rules.  And from that moment followed one of the most intimate nights of your lives. In one of the hotel's hidden rooms, you and Jonathan played a game of strip poker ,fueled by glasses of champagne, that led to you losing your virginity to the night manager. 

The morning after, Jonathan woke you up with sweet kisses all over your neck and shoulder while you were entangled in his bedsheets. Over a breakfast of Parisian-style hot chocolate and croissants, you bonded became your doting sweetheart.

The next three months were the most comfortable ones of Jonathan's life. In his mind, those months were like the kind of time he could have shared with Sophie if she weren't tied up in Freddie Hamid's dangerous games. If her life weren't as precarious as Jonathan's own life.

No, Jonathan silently chastised himself. Sophie was not you. Jed was not you. None of them could ever hold a candle to you.

Yes, they were beautiful. Always put together and dressed head-to-toe in designer wear found in expensive boutiques, knowing the right things to say at the right time. But you…you were everything he truly wanted. Kind, endearing, loyal, and filled with a rosy outlook that contrasted the cynicism that Jonathan had built to shield himself from a ruthless world. 

And yes, Jonathan remembered with a smile, you always had your own form of seduction: holding his hand and stealing kisses while you walked through the city on holidays; playing with his hair after sleeping together, and teasing him with your toes while he answered tedious calls on the hotel phone. Usually those little games of yours ended with you laughing without restraint as soon as he hung up the phone, and him silencing you with his lips on yours. 

It was drug-like, the effect you had on him during those three months of romance. Every time you were near, he simply had to hold you close, touching you and kissing you. And those needs stemmed beyond mere lust - he also wanted to listen to you speak about your favorite things, even if that involved you rambling for thirty minutes about how King Henry V courted Catherine Valois. He wanted to see you laugh at the most awful jokes, and to witness your face light up at the sight of snowflakes. But most of all, he wanted you to live. He wanted you to life a life filled to the brim with joy, peace, and comfort. 

When he parted ways with you to join Agent Burr in Operation Limpet, he'd expected you to move on. To fall in love with another - someone who could give you that beautiful life you deserved without burdening you with a baggage-filled past. It would indeed break his heart, but not as much as his heart broke when he watched you sob the day he informed you of his resignation from Meister. Yet here you were, over a year later, going out of your way to keep in touch with him despite every possible risk.

So when you booked a five-day long holiday in London during Easter just to see him again, Jonathan took it upon himself to make it as perfect for you as possible. 

He'd already told Agent Burr at the Foreign Office to hold all calls and files until next week if possible.

"Goodness, Pine. Always so quick to risk everything for a girl," Burr tutted him.

"She's not just any girl. She's my girl."

The first thing Jonathan had in mind for you was a home-cooked dinner, knowing you would be quite tired from your journey. You would stay in his flat, of course. He could never allow you to sleep anywhere else. Then, he booked two tickets for the Donmar theater to witness a performance of Shakespeare's Coriolanus, led by some actor named Tom whatever-his-last-name-was. After that, Jonathan compiled a list of everything else that a visitor to London would want to see: Big Ben, the London Eye, the British museum, and the Rose Gardens in Hyde Park. And as a footnote to his itinerary, Jonathan added a trip to Primrose Bakery - just for the girl who described her favorite cakes in detail.

Two more hours. Jonathan glanced at his watch again. There was one more thing that he needed to do before going to Heathrow airport in time for your flight.

"Hello," Jonathan opened the black ornate door of a Harry Winston store on New Bond street, and approached a member of staff. "I'm looking to buy an engagement ring."

He cursed himself momentarily for not having done this sooner, the moment he received word about your trip to London. To his luck, however, Jonathan found an elegant round-cut ring, three-quarters of a carat. It was the best thing that he could give someone so loving and devoted. A diamond for his most precious diamond.

Paying for the ring with a stack of cash that led to some raised eyebrows, Jonathan then hailed a taxi. At the sight of him leaving the Harry Winston store with the small box containing the ring, the driver couldn't help but chuckle.

"Wife or girlfriend?" The cabbie asked after hearing Jonathan's destination.

"Yes." Jonathan laughed for the first time in weeks, perhaps months.

The taxi eventually reached the perimeter of the airport, and Jonathan handsomely tipped the driver. On his way to the terminal, he shoved the small box into one of his pockets. He didn't bother top sit down as he waited for your flight, pacing up and down.

He needed to decide the right moment to give you the ring. Obviously he couldn't present the ring as soon as you landed; it would be too hasty. Perhaps he could surprise you with it at Primrose Bakery, after sharing a slice of tiramisu and some tea. He could gently take you by the hand, look you in the eye, and simply…ask the question that would make you his for the rest of his life. Or, the moment might be better in Hyde Park surrounded by the flower beds, a setting that you would surely find romantic. Wherever it was, Jonathan needed to do it at some point during these next five days. He just needed to do it, or risk - 

"Pine?"

Jonathan turned around to find you outside the gate with a rolling suitcase next to you. There you were, standing there with that perfect smile he would never stop adoring. Even with a hint of maturity on your face painted by the passage of those months, it was still as if nothing changed after all this time. And the best part of it all? You were really there, not just part of a dream that floated into his mind on a sleepless night. 

He sensed that same, familiar perfume of yours when you threw your arms around him. Right now, there was nowhere else he'd rather be than here in this moment, embracing you. Your lips found his, and his fingers rested in your hair. God, he could never forget the way you felt, how soft and comforting your lips were He placed his other arm around your waist and pulled you closer, deepening the kiss. For Jonathan, this wasn't just any kiss. This was the first of many kisses needed to make up for the tears he made you shed, and for the pain of separation that he made you sure.

You broke the kiss after what felt like several moments, gasping. "I missed you so much…'  Your forehead rested against his for a moment before Jonathan pecked you on your forehead, on both of your cheeks, and on the corner of your mouth.

"I missed you more," Jonathan murmured between kisses. "I missed everything about you…,I…I love you, my dearest diamond."

As soon as you could catch your breath, you pressed your lips against his one last time. "I love you too, Pine." 

Tagging: @lokischambermaid @smolvenger @lovelysizzlingbluebird @asgards-princess-of-mischief @omgsuperstarg @holdmytesseract @lokidbadguy @stupidthoughtsinwriting @icytrickster17 @thatdummy-girl @fantasyfan4life @anukulee @muddyorbsblr @fantasyfan4life @eleniblue

[astronomiaa]

Headcanon (theory?): Jacob's shilling necklace was actually Cecily's

It feels like there's always been a bit of a mystery to why Jacob wears the shilling necklace, ranging from it could just be a unique design choice or Jacob keeping a lucky coin on him since he has a tendency to try his luck. It's always felt like it's held some sort of significance - at least to me? Jacob's seen wearing the necklace even before he and Evie head to London, when he's still wearing his Simply Jacob outfit (his starter-mon outfit, if you will). A physical copy of the necklace was also included for anyone who pre-ordered Syndicate.

So it's kind of bumbled around in my head, until I discovered victorian love tokens while doing some research and it's like the dots have connected.

For anyone who doesn't know, like I didn't, love tokens were coins that were handcarved by a family member, a suitor to be, or friends, and given to a recipient to convey feelings. They weren't just romantic! They have a long history, but the victorians were crazy for them and love tokens became a pretty popular physical embodiment of ones love for another person. (Especially so, because they were usually made using coins - and the British already had a tradition of keeping lucky coins in their pocket? Fun!)

Most often they would be carved with names and dates, words to describe the relationship between the two, etc. In rarer cases (or at least considered rare to find for collectors of today), they would be carved with pictures that would be symbolically important for the giver and recipient.

I bring this up because for anyone who was lucky enough to receive an actual Jacob Pendant from ubisoft, or just bought of a replica off like... etsy or something, you know that Jacob's pendant actually has the Assassin symbol carved onto it.

In my opinion, this definitely makes the shilling a token of some sort! It could possibly be a token carried by all English Assassins, a way to recognize one another, but I like to believe that it may have been a romantic gift from Ethan to Cecily. After all, they were both two VERY devoted Assassins who were considered to have come the closest to freeing London from Templar rule before Henry, Jacob, and Evie. Whatever reason for the token, we can at least assume the token was Cecily's!

How do we know it's Cecily's? How it's meant to be worn!

Since tokens were made out of coins, which were in turn made out of semi precious metals, tokens could be turned into jewelry. It was common for women to wear them as bracelets, pendents, necklaces, and earrings. Men would wear them as cufflinks and put them on watch chains.

Jacob's shilling pendant is well... a pendant. It's traditionally womens jewelry (though I don't think Jacob could care any less about the way jewelry is meant to be worn in relation to gender).

So yeah! Even if I'm connecting dots that may not quite be there, the thought of Jacob having something of Cecily's is... nice. Especially since... Ethan and Jacob did not have uh, the best of relationships.

Anyways, thanks for reading my silly lil headcanon and have a nice day!

[andiatas]

The Lost Queen: The Surprising Life of Catherine of Braganza, Britain’s Forgotten Monarch by Sophie Shorland (Jun. 6, 2024)

Despite Catherine of Braganza's crucial place in British history, and that of its Empire, she has since been overshadowed by stories of the king's many mistresses and forgotten as Charles' boring, powerless wife. This could not be further from the truth.

In an absorbing narrative, historian Sophie Shorland not only tells the full story of this long-overlooked figure and her difficult relationship with Charles II, but also reveals how Catherine changed the country in ways both large and small: part of her dowry was Bombay, Britain's first territory on the Indian subcontinent; she also popularised trousers for women, Baroque art and music, and - perhaps most long-lastingly - tea drinking.

Sophie Shorland has a PhD in Early Modern English literature and is a former Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. She was a semi-finalist in the BBC's New Generation Thinkers competition and the proposal for her first book was shortlisted for the Tony Lothian Prize.

[eirxair]

In honour of a uk general election having to be held sometime soon, here is my reasoning for why you should vote for me.

i have half a braincell, and therefore understand that trickle down economics is absolute bullshit.

i have half a braincell and therefore understand that the rich should be the most taxed.

i have half a braincell and therefore understand that climate change is bad, and we should be using more sustainable sources of energy, we're an island ffs.

i have half a braincell and therefore understand that teachers, the NHS and other essential workers keep this country going, and thus they should have better working conditions and pay.

i have half a braincell and therefore understand that women should have better healthcare, maternity leave should be longer and payed, and childcare should be at the very least semi-state funded up until the end of primary school, especially for families on a lower income.

i have a half a braincell and therefore understand that british history should be taught better in schools. that means children learn about the atrocities their country committed.

by taxing the rich, and doing trickle up economics, people would be payed more meaning they can buy more meaning prices could theoretically go down, meaning i could reduce freddo prices back to something that isnt a crime against god.

i'll rename London to Derrylondon so they can be matchers

rejoin the EU, i'll call it Brenter instead of Brexit.

i will name the rat from horrible histories a national hero, and a statue will be erected up instead of oliver cromwell who's outside the house of commons.

[frodolives]

I've decided that I would like to understand what my mutuals see in the old man music cinematic universe. I have loved and supported their derangement from afar in my life and would like to dip my toes in, so to speak. so I come to you humble now and ask: where can I get information about the beatles that will make me think about old British boy band members exploring eachothers bodies? if it helps, I dont mind their more well known music, but I've never really dug into it properly.

Oh man. You've no idea how tough this is to answer lol. My derangement regarding the Beatles has been built up over 6 years now and I hardly remember how it even began.

I suppose that yes, if you're new, you should begin with listening to all their music because it's genuinely very good stuff. Their filmography is also good. If you haven't seen any of their films yet, it's a great place to start because the Beatles' looks, personalities, and sense of humour are just as important to understanding their appeal as their music is (in order: A Hard Day's Night (1964), Help! (1965), Magical Mystery Tour (1967), Yellow Submarine (1968), and Let It Be (1970) - most of these should be free to watch on Dailymotion).

If you're very serious about the Beatles and into the history on an actual academic level, this is a pretty good list of free resources to browse through.

My personal introduction into becoming an actual gay Beatles truther was a series of fan-made documentaries on YouTube called Understanding Lennon-McCartney. It's been a very long time since I've seen them, but I remember them blowing my mind and making me believe in the concept of soulmates. As fun as it is to make jokes about the Beatles exploring each other's bodies, there's something genuinely profound and beautiful about Lennon and McCartney's relationship that shouldn't be overlooked. Chris Evans said it best:

The Understanding Lennon-McCartney documentaries series is also just the most comprehensive overview of McLennon that I know of, even if it's semi-outdated now. I watched them in 2019 and even in just the last 5 years, a lot of new McLennon info has come out. We are truly living in the golden age of Beatles RPF.

One of the biggest recent developments was Peter Jackson's 2021 Get Back series. They're basically a revamped version of Let It Be (1970) and also required viewing at some point. I know a lot of Beatles fans who were introduced to the band via Get Back so I suppose it's not a bad place to start if you're so inclined, though since they chronicle some of the last days of the band, I think they can be best appreciated if you're already at least somewhat familiar with the boys.

After watching all of that, I think you'll have a pretty decent foundation of what people on Tumblr are talking about. Then oddly enough, I'd consider Tumblr the best resource for info. There's more in-depth Beatles talk on here than any other website as far as I know and, in my experience, I learned a lot just by freely exploring various tags and blogs.

There's also the Beatles biopic cinematic universe which is worth dipping your toes into if you like RPF and want an entertaining way to learn the gist of the band's history. There's a lot of low budget biopics out there about those boys. Even I haven't seen them all yet so I wouldn't say watching them is an absolute must, though there's three iconic "gay john lennon biopics" that are entertaining bc of how genuinely gay they are: The Hours and Times 1991 (about John's relationship to Brian Epstein), Backbeat 1994 (about John's relationship to Stuart Sutcliffe), and Two of Us 2000 (about John's relationship to Paul McCartney; the most iconic and revered of all Beatles biopics).

I don't really know what other reccs to give. If anybody wants to chime in with other suggestions, go forth! There's just so much Beatles lore and it's easy to become overwhelmed by it all so definitely take your time lol. And if you ever have any specific questions about the Beatles, I'd be very happy to answer them!

Happy RPFing!

[landwriter]

honestly would love to hear more about twinflower if you felt like sharing? :)

I have been drafting this ask response on and off for over a week because I want everyone to love twinflower as much as I do thank you for your patience uh I mean yes! I do feel like sharing! thank you for enabling me! make yourself a cuppa and get comfy. it's Gloam's Natural History Hour, and here is everything you should love about the twinflower

Let us begin with the Latin name: Linnaea borealis. But first, it was Campanula serpyllifolia. Let me explain.

Twinflower is a small and unremarkable evergreen plant that nonetheless captured the heart of one of the world's most influential scientists in the eighteenth century. Species Plantarum is best-known for containing the first consistent use of binomial nomenclature (genus and species), but it was also there that Carl Linnaeus described twinflower for the first time.

It is a creeping subshrub that grows along the ground, with green and glossy shallow-toothed oval leaves about the size of dimes. Blooms come from delicate hairy stems that have unfolded themselves to the comparatively towering height of two or so inches above the ground. They are pinkish-white, nodding, and look like the sort of thing you'd imagine a fairy lives in. As you might suspect from the name, they grow in pairs. Some three centuries after Linnaeus first described it, one Mark C. in the comments of a 2013 blog post described the fragrance as "a delight to the most jaded sniffer".

In portraits, he is often found holding it. (Linnaeus, not Mark C.) He dearly loved it. But he could not name twinflower after himself: at first, it was classified in a different genus, and besides, it was poor taste. What's a guy to do?

Become acquainted with a wealthy Dutch botanist, Gronovius, son not of preachers and peasants but classical scholars, who would name it for him in his honour. Naturally. In gratitude, and advocacy for such acts of commemorative botanical naming, Linnaeus wrote in Critica Botanica:

It is commonly believed that the name of a plant which is derived from that of a botanist shows no connection between the two...[but]...Linnaea was named by the celebrated Gronovius and is a plant of Lapland, lowly, insignificant, disregarded, flowering but for a brief space — after Linnaeus who resembles it.

He would go on, of course, to receive fanmail from Rousseau. Contemporary Goethe would later write: "With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, I know no one among the no longer living who has influenced me more strongly."

Lowly Linnaeus himself chose borealis, for Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind; and indeed it grows where the north wind blows, in a great circumboreal ring around the globe, from semi-shaded woodlands in southern British Columbia (hello), to tundra and taiga in Sweden and Siberia. You can find the same blooms in China and Poland and Minnesota. It's as old as glaciers. In Poland and other European countries it is in fact protected as glacial relict, and you can find it isolated at high elevations far south of its range, where it was left behind in the Pleistocene.

And now it is Linnaea borealis.

When Linnaeus was ennobled twenty years later for his services to botany, zoology, and medicine, he put the twinflower on his coat of arms. Some references use hedging (pun intended) language to describe their relationship: he was 'reported to be fond'. It was 'rumoured to be a favourite.' Bullshit, I say. He was in love. Anyone can see it.

One final etymological point of interest: his surname is itself borrowed from nature. After enrolling in university, his father had to abandon his patronymic last name and create family name. A priest, he created the Latinate Linnæus after linden - the great tree that grew on the family homestead.

And so from Latin and nature sprung the name, and not a generation later, unto Latin and nature it had returned. A name crafted of whole cloth in homage an enormous tree now describes the genus of a plant that tops out at three inches tall and has flowers smaller than your thumbnail.

In spite of this, its uses are myriad. A common name of twinflower in Norwegian, nårislegras, translates to corpse rash grass, for its use in treating skin conditions. It can be made into a tea to take in pregnancy or provide relief of menstrual cramps. Scandinavian folk medicines use it for rheumatism. Humans have made it into teas, tinctures, decoctions, poultices, and even administered its therapeutic properties via smoke inhalation. And then there is its persistent and widespread use in filling our hearts: lending itself century over century and season over season to mankind, to a coat of arms, a poem, a photo, a fond memory—

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Woodnotes I, says this of twinflower and the man it's named for:

He saw beneath dim aisles, in odorous beds, The slight Linnaea hang its twin-born heads, And blessed the monument of the man of flowers, Which breathes his sweet fame through the northern bowers.

Art is subjective, but I will happily admit I prefer this passage, from Robert of Isle Royale, on the website Minnesota Wildflowers:

My wife and I encountered Linnaea borealis in the last week of June 38 years ago on Isle Royale. We now live in Vilas County in northern Wisconsin and were happy to find a large patch of Twinflowers growing under the sugar maples, balsam fir and hemlock on our property there. This is now very special to us and we await their flowering each June around our anniversary.

A final note. Twinflower requires genetically different individuals to set seed and reproduce sexually. This is known as self-incompatibility. Thus the plants in those isolated spots - old glacial hideouts, or places with fragmented plant populations like Scotland - only reproduce clonally. Let us end with imagining a plant that has not reproduced with another for millennia, but instead carries its line on its own back, and survives by creating itself over and over again, in a genetically identical colony that grows with wet summers and shrinks with dry ones; that briefly blooms every June, lifting its flowers high above itself, a hundred tiny beacons that will be answered only by its own voice; and there, too far for pollination, but a distance you or I could travel in minutes, is its nearest partner, doing the same thing, across an impossible void that looks to us as nothing more than a gap between one part of the woods and the next. Yet it is L. borealis, named for a man named for a tree, that is capable of looking out across generations of humankind walking fragmented pine woodlands and the ghostly southern border of the Laurentide ice sheet, and seeing nothing more than the gap between one seed-set and the next.

Let us end with imagining a tiny plant, and ourselves beside it, loving it for hundreds of years, even smaller.

[gatheringbones]

[“… in the case of the United States, settler colonialism was more than a colonial structure that developed and replicated itself over time in the 170 years of British colonization in North America preceding the founding of the United States. The founders were not an oppressed, colonized people. They were British citizens being restrained by the monarch from expanding the thirteen colonies to enrich themselves. They were imperialists who visualized the conquest of the continent and gaining access to the Pacific and China. Achieving that goal required land, wealth, and settler participation. They devised a unique plan, manifest in the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, which was created during the War of Independence by the Continental Congress and reenacted at independence by the US Congress in 1789.

Designed as what historian Howard Lamar called “an internal colonial system for the West,” its provisions were borrowed in part from the British system of settler colonialism in Ulster, Ireland, and the thirteen North American colonies. However, this invention was something new, the constitutional construction of the fiscal-military settler state, with both ethnic cleansing of the Native presence and chattel slavery producing racial capitalism.

The Northwest Ordinance provided for eventual settler self-government once European American settlers outnumbered the Indigenous population. This land act guaranteed to the settlers property, civil rights, religious freedom, trial by jury, representational legislation, and public education. That ultimate conclusion, however, was preceded by successive stages of colonial development, from military ethnic cleansing and control to a federally appointed territorial government to a semi-representational government to, finally, admission into the United States as a state. This constituted a unit of the fiscal-military nation-state. Lamar observes that apologists for US expansionism do not see the ordinance as a reflection of colonialism but rather as a means of “reconciling the problem of liberty with the problem of empire.”

The founders were unapologetic imperialists, chips off the old block of British imperialism, but with the added conceit of an “empire for liberty,” as Thomas Jefferson conceived the future. Historian David Reynolds writes that Jefferson believed the US empire was destined to assume the responsibility to spread freedom around the world, starting with the North American continent and intervening abroad. US foreign policy was stamped with this concept and has provided the ideological motivation for all US wars and interventions.

Through the Northwest Ordinance, the United States created a unique land system among colonial powers, including Britain. In the US system, land itself—not just what was produced from the land, such as agriculture, mining, logging, grazing, and so on—was the most important exchange commodity for the accumulation of capital and building the national treasury. In order to comprehend the apparently irrational genocidal policy of the US government toward the presence of Native nations on the land, the centrality of land sales in building the economic base of the US capitalist system must be the frame of reference. This policy was embedded in the design of the fiscal-military state. As Wolfe summed up the issue, “Tribal land was tribally owned—tribes and private property did not mix. Indians were the original communist menace. . . . Whatever settlers may say—and they generally have a lot to say—the primary motive for elimination is not race (or religion, ethnicity, grade of civilization, etc.) but access to territory. Territoriality is settler colonialism’s specific, irreducible element.”]

roxanne dunbar-ortiz, from not a nation of immigrants: settler colonialism, white supremacy, and a history of erasure and exclusion, 2021